


Shadows in the Spotlight: From Marc's Personal Journal, September 14, 2000

by vega_voices



Category: Original - Fandom, shadows in the spotlight
Genre: Character Study, M/M, character journal, pubslush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:11:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you ever look at your own hand so long that you start to see every pore, every skin cell even? Do you stare so long that you seem to be able to see right through your skin and you can see the blood rushing through your veins … it’s like … I can see the virus latching onto me … changing me …</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows in the Spotlight: From Marc's Personal Journal, September 14, 2000

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the music of Queensryche, Iron Maiden, Queen, Metallica, Judas Priest, and more - Shadows in the Spotlight is the story of Marc Gadling, a young musician who is navigating the waters of the emerging metal scene in Los Angeles, the gay counter culture in the city, and the rising fears of what came to be known as HIV/AIDS. It tells the story of his family - the brother who loves him unconditionally, the lover who dies too young, the best friend who is the silent sentinel, and the young prodigy who proves that even after death, there is life. 
> 
> Here's how it works. Shadows in the Spotlight is available for pre-order on pubslush.com. Pubslush is a social publisher that allows the reader, not the editor, to chose what is read. Authors place the book on the site, and you, the reader take a gander. If you like what you read, place a pre-order as a promise, a promise that you will purchase this book once it is made available to buy. In addition, for every book that is published, pubslush donates a book to child literacy programs around the world. The thing is, this book cannot get published without your pre-order. If you're wondering what you're getting, Shadows in the Spotlight has a proven track record. An excerpt was published in the 2010 QSalt Lake Literary edition and it won the Honorable Mention in the 53rd Annual Utah Arts Council Fiction Writing Compeition (2011). 
> 
> For the past 30 days, support has been growing. But it isn't enough. 959 preorders are still needed in the next three months to secure publication. If you like your books peppered with heavy hitting doses of rock music, fairy tales of boys who make it big, and stories of how family is formed through passion and not blood, take note of what Shadows in the Spotlight has for you. 
> 
> Pre-order here: http://www.pubslush.com/book/view/198

Do you ever look at your own hand so long that you start to see every pore, every skin cell even? Do you stare so long that you seem to be able to see right through your skin and you can see the blood rushing through your veins … it’s like … I can see the virus latching onto me … changing me … 

The word gave it power. There is a part of me, honestly, that believes that Jared would be alive today if he’d never been diagnosed. The word gave it power, it gave his life an ending. Let’s be honest … you can have the world’s best attitude, and if you know you’re going to die, there is still this tiny part of your subconscious that eats away at you. You never know when IT is going to happen. You start to agonize, subconsciously, over what it’s going to feel like. I wonder if humans really aren’t immortal but because we named mortality, we gave that final moment a word – death – we are the cause of our own mortality. We live to die, and when you know you will die before you’re supposed to, it adds to that mindset. Eventually, that subconscious thought breaks through to the conscious level and it becomes an obsession. The word made it real. It gave them something to hate us over … words … Wouldn’t that be so ironic, if words were really the cause of human mortality? If it wasn’t the body giving out or the mind slowing down but if it was simply the power of the word? We have always been told we will get old, so we do. We’ve never questioned it. 

So, if I’d never been diagnosed, would I still be dying? 

We’ll never know now, will we?

But I don’t know. A dying man makes up a lot of shit in order to make himself feel better. I don’t know if I believe this or not, but I think there might be some validity to it. My doctors talk endlessly about having a “Good attitude” but they never actually give the attitude power by giving it words. Is it an attitude that will make me live? I don’t know. But, before I had to have that attitude, I was given a diagnosis. That diagnosis permeated my brain. It’s affected everything I do. I am going to live life until the very end, but that end has been proscribed by doctors who looked at blood tests and x-rays and gave what is living inside of me a deadly name. Really, if they’d called it Bob instead of AIDS, would it be totally different? How threatening is it to say, “I’ve got Bob.”

Why did those first humans name mortality then?

“Maybe fear. Something was happening to their bodies and they were scared of it so they named it in fear but maybe it was just a transformation to something else, to that mythical Nirvana that we’re still, tens of thousands of years later, in search of. But those first humans were scared, so they named it mortal and called it death.

I don’t know. It’s a theory, and probably a stupid one. But really, all we are, as humans, really, are theories. We’re six billion different theories, all operating with our own version of God and our own version of science. And before you tell me that science is the same for everyone, I’ll remind you of the idiots who think that the creation story in Genesis belongs in a biology class. Many of those idiots sit on the board of my son’s school, so I know they exist. It’s six billion different theories walking around on his planet and so far … none of us is really right.


End file.
